Powerful military orders and strong royal power - this was the best balance of forces for the successful defense of the Latin states. Unfortunately, in 1174, at the death of Amory, the royal power was shaken. The young and talented Baldwin IV fell ill with leprosy. His death marked the beginning of a political crisis that turned into disaster as a result of the activities of Gerard de Ridfort, the evil genius of the Order of the Temple.
War in the East around 1180
To understand the military aspect of this crisis, it is necessary to carefully study the military art of the Latins, including the Templars.
The first crusaders who arrived in the East knew how to fight on horseback. Horseshoes, saddle, stirrups allowed the knight to confidently hold on to the horse and build up striking power during an attack. Archery was also familiar to them. But before that, they did not participate in very large-scale battles. In the East, however, they had to face a mobile enemy who preferred to fight at a distance. The heavily armed horseman of Western Europe met in battle with the horse archer of the eastern armies. A shower of arrows towards an avalanche of attacking cavalry - this is how this confrontation looked at the initial stage.
The Frankish rider was dressed in chain mail made of metal rings or plates, on a cloth or leather base; but during the XII century. this armor has become more flexible and light - a real lace made of thousands of small iron rings. Both the one and the other chain mail protected the person from head to knee. A cloth tunic was worn over it, which protected the rider from the heat of the sun. The helmet or shishak was cylindrical or round in shape. A special plate covered the nose, while others, at the level of the neck, completed the protective uniform. In this form, the crusaders are depicted on the frescoes of the chapel in Cressac (Charente) and on the gravestones in the Church of the Order of the Temple in London. The knight reflected blows with a triangular shield (ecu), initially large and elongated, then shortened and more convenient in battle. The weapon of attack was a long spear.
In battle, the knights were divided into spears, banners, battles. They attacked in lines, of which there were usually three: the knights from the first line had to break through the enemy lines, from the second - to complete the defeat of the enemy, the third remained in reserve. Templars were divided into detachments led by commanders, who in turn carried out the orders of the Marshal of the Order of the Temple. Each Templar took his place in the ranks and could not leave it without permission.
This heavy cavalry was opposed by light horsemen of the Muslim - more precisely, Turkic - armies. From the middle of the XI century. The Seljuk Turks (Seljuk Turks) consisted of the military and political personnel of the Baghdad Caliphate. Anna Komnina, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexei Komnenos, describes the tactics of the Turks as follows: “As for military weapons, they do not use a spear at all, unlike those who are called the Celts; they completely surround the enemy, shower him with arrows and defend themselves from a distance."
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However, don't oversimplify everything. The Muslim world was not homogeneous, and, for example, the armies of the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt fought as crusaders rather than as Turks. Having met in battle, the Frankish and Turkic warriors learned a lot about each other and changed their battle technique and combat tactics.
The first innovation was that in addition to knights, infantry - archers, crossbowmen and spearmen - had to participate in battles. In the battles of Crécy and Poitiers, the French knights forgot everything that in the XII century. their predecessors learned from the battlefields in Palestine and Egypt. There were almost no battles in which only cavalry would participate. The infantry prepared the ground for the attack of the horsemen, and also covered them.
Having formed in a column, the infantrymen carried out the order to protect the army. shooting with bows to make it easier for the cavalry to fight the enemy. The horsemen needed to protect the infantry from enemy arrows, and they relied on the spears of the mounted knights, which did not allow the enemy to break through their ranks. So, helping each other, both of them left the battle unharmed.
The second innovation has long been underestimated. It is about the creation of light cavalry that fought in the Turkic manner. These horsemen were called Turcopols: they were recruited from the local Christian population. A series of articles of additions to the charter are devoted to them and their commander, the Turcopoleier, which means that the Templars used these new military forces already in the middle of the 12th century. As for the Turcopoleier, he also commanded the brothers-sergeants during the battles. Historians of the time, who were primarily interested in the attacks of the mounted knights, pay little attention to how the light cavalry was used, which, however, was not just an auxiliary force. The military orders recruited the Turcopols as mercenaries, since they had sufficient financial resources for this. The treaty concluded in 1168 between Amory and the Hospitallers provided forthat "the brothers and their master must bring on this campaign five hundred well-armed horsemen and the same number of Turcopols, who must appear before the marshal and constable at a review in Larissa [El Arish]."
Both Christians and Muslims tried to impose their own way of fighting on the enemy. In a large open area, a frontal attack by heavy cavalry was impossible to resist. In the climatic conditions of the Middle East, the land abounding in springs was considered suitable for military operations. The heavily armed rider quickly got tired and thirsty. His horse suffered no less, so he had to take frequent breaks. This circumstance explains the choice of Seforia, rich in sources, as a gathering point for the armies of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
In order for the attacking cavalry to nevertheless come into direct contact with the enemy, it was necessary to force the Muslims, who usually preferred to evade a direct clash, to take battle. The clouds of arrows fired by the Turks demoralized the Latins, and their feigned flight broke their cohesion. The crusader armies had to comply with three mandatory requirements: not to penetrate too deeply into the enemy's ranks, not to allow themselves to be cut off from the main forces, not to provide the enemy with the opportunity to separate the infantry and horsemen. Under the protection of the infantry, who staunchly withstand enemy fire, the knights had to wait, sometimes for long hours, for the right moment to crush the enemy with a sudden throw. Only an experienced military leader could win in such circumstances. In 1170 under Daron, Amori faced a Muslim army,which had a significant numerical superiority. He lined up his horsemen and foot soldiers on the hill and held them there all day, never allowing himself to be provoked into uncoordinated actions. In the evening Saladin left the battlefield. On this day, the cavalry attack did not occur. In 1177, Baldwin IV, with a small force, joined by eighty Templars, unexpectedly bumped into Saladin's main body. Since the enemy had not yet had time to line up in battle formation, Baldwin immediately deployed the ranks of his cavalry and attacked the Muslims: this was how the victory was won at Monjisar. But in 1179 …On this day, the cavalry attack did not occur. In 1177, Baldwin IV, with a small force, joined by eighty Templars, unexpectedly bumped into Saladin's main body. Since the enemy had not yet had time to line up in battle formation, Baldwin immediately deployed the ranks of his cavalry and attacked the Muslims: this was how the victory was won at Monjisar. But in 1179 …On this day, the cavalry attack did not occur. In 1177, Baldwin IV, with a small force, joined by eighty Templars, unexpectedly bumped into Saladin's main body. Since the enemy had not yet had time to line up in battle formation, Baldwin immediately deployed the ranks of his cavalry and attacked the Muslims: this was how the victory was won at Monjisar. But in 1179 …
King Baldwin the Leper fought Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt, in a place called Marjleon, and was defeated along with his people, namely: his brother Ed de Saint-Aman, Master of the Templars, Baldwin d'Ibelen and many knights. And I believe that defeat befell them, because they were more proud of their strength than they were entrusted with the power of the holy cross, which they left in Tiberias.
In fact, the attack was launched too early. Saladin's warriors wavered and fled, but the Frankish infantry dispersed, plundering, and the horsemen lost contact with each other, carried away by the pursuit. Saladin restored order to his army and launched a counteroffensive without much difficulty.
The position of the army on the march was especially vulnerable. To solve this problem, the Templars, who observed the same rules here as in battle, developed a method of movement in a column that made it possible to successfully repel an attack of horse archers: the events of the Second Crusade can serve as proof of this. Let's look a little ahead, in the period of the Third Crusade: after the conquest of Acre in 1191, the crusader army moved south under the command of King Richard the Lionheart of England. The Hospitallers and Templars succeeded each other in the vanguard and rearguard.
In the center were the main forces with carts, property and provisions. Here was a weak point of the column: infantrymen covered it with shields from the flanks. Saladin's warriors constantly attacked the closing detachment, trying to force him to accept the battle, to delay and cut off from the main forces. Once at Caesarea, “the army was in an extremely constrained position than ever before. The rearguard was entrusted to the Templars, who beat themselves in the chest in the evening, as they lost so many horses that they were completely confused. " The next day the Hospitallers marched in the rear guard; under the onslaught of the Turks, the brothers became agitated: “Saint George, will you allow us to be interrupted? Why should Christians perish without fighting? " These were the words of Gauthier Nabluski, Grand Master of the Hospitaller Order. He went to King Richard and said: “Sir,it is too great a dishonor and shame for us to be subjected to such an attack, because each of us has lost a horse. " And the king replied: "Patience, my dear sir, a person cannot be everywhere at the same time." The Christians meticulously prepared their attack. “If they had followed the plan, they would have exterminated all the Turks; but the plan failed due to the fault of two people, who could not restrain their desire to attack … One of them was a knight, Marshal of the Order of the Hospitallers. "Marshal of the Order of the Hospitallers. Marshal of the Order of the Hospitallers.
Nevertheless, as noted by all observers, the military orders were distinguished by extraordinary discipline. Ambroise, in his account of the Third Crusade, often laments the disorganization of the “pilgrims,” but never - except in the case mentioned above - complains about the orders. In fact, the templars had to fear the lack of a sense of proportion and recklessness of their leaders, rather than rare manifestations of personal insubordination. Because of his impulsiveness, Ed de Saint-Aman is responsible for many of the failures that occurred during his tenure as master (1171-1179). And what about Gerard de Ridfor, blinded by hatred, who in 1187 made a lot of tactical mistakes!
Political crisis in Jerusalem
In 1180, after the crushing defeats of the previous year, the Christians made a truce with Saladin. Despondency and defeatist moods reigned among the population of the Latin states: "fear gripped the hearts of their inhabitants," says the Arab historian, and Guillaume of Tire notes that in the north, "the Knights of the Temple who lived in this area locked themselves in their castles, awaiting a siege from a minute for a minute".
The kingdom was like a ship without a rudder: the armistice had just been broken up at the whim of adventurers like Renaud de Chatillon. Military actions that did not lead to decisive results undermined the fighting spirit of the Franks and their will to resist. A protracted political crisis began, in which the order took an active part.
King Baldwin was a leper and, for all his courage, could only rule through intermediaries. Until the end of his life, he instructed capable people to govern his state. There were two of them: Raymund III, Count of Tripoli, and Seigneur of Tiberias, "Pulen", who enjoyed the support of the great barons of the Holy Land and most of the clergy. He spent ten years in Muslim dungeons and was released in 1174 when the Order of the Hospital paid a ransom for him. From 1174 to 1176, Raimund ruled the kingdom as regent. Then Baldwin IV, who came of age, took power into his own hands and decided to rely on another party, whose leader was Guy de Lusignan.
A confrontation began between the party of barons and the court party, which consisted not of newly arrived, recently disembarked crusaders, as it was sometimes argued, but of people who took their place through patronage, intrigue or marriage. They did not inherit their position. Renaud de Chatillon spent thirty years in Syria and Palestine (ten of which he was prince of Antioch, ruling on behalf of his wife). After sixteen years spent in captivity by the Muslims, he again moved to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, where he received a large southern seigneur in Moab's Kerak and Trans-Jordan. Guy de Lusignan, who had recently arrived from Poitou, married Sibylla, sister of Baldwin IV and mother of the heir to the throne, Baldwin V.
After 1183 the king changed his position: the hostility of the nobility towards Lusignan and the latter's failures prompted the king to turn to Raymund again. The rivalry between the two groups intensified in connection with the problem of inheritance to Baldwin IV. The king felt the approach of death, and his successor was only five years old. It was clear that a long period of regency was coming: the king had to entrust the regency either to his sister Sibylla, that is, Lusignan, or to Raimund. And if Baldwin V dies young, who will replace him? To eliminate the candidacy of Lusignan, Baldwin obtained from the High Curia of the kingdom, which consisted of barons and bishops, consent to the following solution of the issue of succession to the throne: the choice of the future monarch was entrusted to a commission, which was to include the pope, emperor, kings of France and England.
Baldwin IV died in 1185, and Baldwin V, his heir, in 1186. Lusignan's party deceived Raymund of Tripoli and, in a real coup d'état, annulled Baldwin IV's orders of succession. On July 20, 1186, Sibylla and Guy were crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher by the patriarch who supported them. The decisive role in this coup d'état was played by the Master of the Order of the Temple, Gerard de Ridfor.
He was a native of Flanders and came to the Holy Land under Amory I. This braggart, brawler and adventurer was nicknamed "the knight errant." He became a mercenary knight in the service of Raymund of Tripoli, receiving a salary in the form of a fief-rent or "paid fief." Naturally, Gerard was worried about his future, and his lord promised him the hand of the first wealthy heiress. It was to be Lucia, the heiress of Fief Botron. But the Count of Tripoli, constantly in need of funds, could not resist the tempting offer of one rich Pisan. He forgot about his promise. The wounded Ridfor has since inflamed a deadly hatred for him. Gerard left Tripoli and after a while appeared in Jerusalem, already as a marshal of the kingdom. Then, after some illness for which he was being treated in the order of the Temple, he took a triple vow and became a Templar. His rise to the heights of power was unusually rapid, since very soon he was appointed seneschal of the order (in 1183 he signed one act as seneschal). At the end of 1184, the master of the order, Arnaud de Torroja, died in Verona, who went with an embassy to Western Europe. At the beginning of 1185, the chapter of the order chose Gerard as its successor.
M. Melville put forward a hypothesis according to which some of the brothers were opposed to Reedfor. With his arrogance and careerism, he strongly resembled the penultimate master of Ed de Saint-Aman. Among them, the order was headed by Master Arnaud de Torroja, who arrived in the Holy Land from the Western European commanders, the former preceptor of Spain, brought up in the order and acted as the guarantor of a certain moderation. Traditionists against mad dogs? Why not. But Reedfor's election was secret.
Ridford immediately plunged into the political intrigues of that time, becoming the main creator of Guy de Lusignan's success. The Templars, whom Raimund suspected, accompanied the coffin of young Baldwin V from Acre to Jerusalem, where the burial was to take place. The whole Lusignan clique had already gathered in the city. Raimund and his supporters were in Nablus. In vain, the count forbade Sibylla to accept the crown, in vain he urged her to remain faithful to her brother's dying will. The Patriarch of Jerusalem and Ridfor, on the contrary, pushed Sibylla to coronation “in defiance of the barons of the land; the patriarch out of love for the mother queen, and the master of the Order of the Temple out of hatred for the Count of Tripoli,”Ernul tells us. The royal crown was kept in the treasury of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the keys to it were entrusted to the patriarch and the Masters of the Templars and Hospitallers. Roger de Moulins, Master of the Hospitallers,refused to give up his key and went to the nearby extensive hospitable home of St. John. Ridford and Renaud de Chatillon followed him. After much resistance, Roger de Moulins gave in and threw his key to the floor. Did the other Hospitallers share his hostility towards Lou-zignan? There is no certainty about that.
The coronation on July 20 brought a lot of joy to Gerard de Ridfor. He allegedly exclaimed: "This crown is worth marrying the heiress of Botron." Gradually, the barons gathered in Nablus joined Lusignan. Raymond of Tripoli, refusing to acknowledge the accomplished fact, withdrew to Tiberias. Fearing an attack by Lusignan, he made an agreement with Saladin. It was more than just a truce. Of course, transactions of this kind were not new in the Latin East. But the danger was still quite real: when Lusignan turned to Ridfor for advice, he persistently persuaded him to oust Raymund from Tiberias. But in the difficult situation that the kingdom was going through, this treaty with Saladin could really look like a betrayal. In any case, under pressure from the barons, the king was forced to enter into negotiations with Raimund,to try to restore agreement, since in 1187 Saladin went on the offensive.
Battle of Hattin
At the beginning of the year, Renaud de Chatillon, breaking the truce with Saladin, captured a huge Muslim caravan. Saladin demanded compensation from the king, and he ordered Reno to return his booty. Chatillon insolently refused. Saladin was just waiting for this. He stirred up the entire Muslim world and by the spring had assembled the most impressive army ever at the disposal of a Muslim.
Despite internal strife, the Kingdom of Jerusalem responded to the challenge. Guy de Lusignan sent an embassy to Raymund, which included Gerard de Ridfort and Roger de Moulins. On the way, they encountered a Muslim detachment, which Raimund - by virtue of a recklessly concluded treaty - allowed to pass through the lands of Tiberias. For Gerard de Ridfort, this meeting was a clear confirmation of the count's betrayal. He immediately summoned eighty Templars from the nearby castle of Fev and, together with a dozen Hospitallers present and forty knights from Nazareth, decided to attack the enemy, despite his numerical superiority. Ridfor contemptuously rejected the advice of the Master of the Hospitallers and one of the Knights of the Temple, Jacqueline de Maglia, who had called for an end to the fight. Naturally, on May 1, at a place called Fontaine de Cresson,the Christians were defeated and completely killed. It seems that only one Ridfor managed to escape. After this, events began to develop rapidly. Guy and Raimund were reconciled, at least outwardly.
On the advice of Reedfor, the king summoned his vassals and the kingdom's militia. Cities and fortresses were left without their garrisons, which joined the ranks of the royal army. Reedford offered to pay these soldiers from the treasury of the English king Henry II, given to the care of the Templars. In fact, Henry II vowed to embark on a crusade to atone for Becket's death, and sent substantial sums of money to the Holy Land, giving it to the Templars and Hospitallers for safekeeping, officially forbidden to touch them until he arrived. Otherwise, the king reserved the right to cover his expenses from the property of the orders in England. Even the embassy sent to the West in 1184, having made sure that Henry II was not going to Jerusalem, could not get the king to give up this treasury. “We need a sovereign who needs money, not money,in need of a sovereign,”the Patriarch of Jerusalem allegedly declared.
Regardless, Reedford opened the chests that held the English treasury and was able to pay four or five thousand infantry.
Saladin was preparing to besiege Tiberias, which was defended by Eshiva, Raymund's wife. The Count of Tripoli himself was in Seforia, where the gathering of troops from all over the kingdom was appointed. He advised not to leave the area rich in springs; not rush into battle, but wait until Saladin's army disperses on its own, since it will not be able to be mobilized for a long time. The Count's proposal was accepted. However, at night Reedfor came to the king: he fueled Lusignan's distrust of the "traitor" Raymund and roused his vanity, convincing him that a single military victory would allow him to sit firmly on his throne. "The king did not dare to argue with the master, because he loved and feared him, because it was he who elevated him to the throne and, moreover, gave him the treasury of the King of England." To be victorious, Saladin had to roll and lift the siege of Tiberias.
On the morning of July 3, the surprised army was ordered to march. All day long a column of people and horses, dying of thirst and showered with arrows, dragged hopelessly slowly under the scorching sun across the parched desert. Weary under the weight of armor that could not be thrown, the knights and infantry were forced to camp halfway, before even reaching the water sources located near Kafr Hattin, despite the fact that the route was changed on the advice of Raymund of Tripoli. The next day, the torment continued. The enemy horse archers had an advantage over the foot Frankish riflemen. The Turkopolians, who were mainly serving in military orders, could not drive them away. The attacks of the Templars, who closed the column, remained unsuccessful without support.
The irreparable happened when the Muslims, taking advantage of the wind, unfavorable for the Latins, set fire to the bushes: the infantrymen fled, abandoning their weapons to surrender or take refuge on the top of the spurs of Hattin. Left without cover, the cavalry suffered huge losses, the horses were shot or hacked with axes. Dismounting, dying of thirst and fatigue, the knights took refuge on the summit, next to the royal tent, erected at the "true cross", which the Christians brought with them. Desperate attacks allowed several knights to break through the Muslim ranks and escape. Among them was Raimund of Tripoli, the rest were captured.
In the hands of Saladin, at least fifteen thousand people were found, for whom he prepared a different fate: the infantrymen were sold into slavery; Renaud de Chatillon, "enemy of the people number one", was executed in the presence of the Sultan - perhaps Saladin killed him with his own hand. Two hundred and thirty Templars and Hospitallers, the exact number of whom we do not know, were tortured, according to the custom first introduced in Banias in 1157. But Saladin spared the king, the barons of the Holy Land and … Ridfor.
Saladin's position is interesting. Here is how he justified the execution of the Templars and Hospitallers: "I want to cleanse the land of these two wicked orders, whose customs are useless, and which will never renounce their hostility and will not serve any service in slavery." It seems to me that these words are similar to those said by the "Old Man of the Mountain", the leader of the Syrian assassins: he believed that killing the masters of the military monastic orders was pointless, since instead of the deceased, the brothers would immediately elect a new leader, and the order would not suffer in the least. Muslims made a clear distinction between the military orders, which they saw as groups welded together by discipline and religious fanaticism (anti-Muslim in nature), and the Palestinian "bulleins", who, they noted, sought to "become more Middle Eastern" (levantiniser). Military orders,into whose ranks brothers from Western Europe constantly joined, they did not succumb to assimilation. The Templar, by definition, was not attached to a place. “If you want to be in Acre, you will be sent to the Tripoli region … or sent to Apulia,” the future templar was told during the reception ceremony.
Based on these considerations, I will make three important observations of a more general nature.
First of all, it is necessary to give a fair assessment of the stories about the friendly relations of the Templars with Muslims. A well-known textbook text by the Arab author Osama ibn-Munkiz, where he boasts of his friendship with the Templars. In addition to the fact that his testimony is sparse (other Muslim authors, on the contrary, are filled with extreme hostility towards Christians in general and military orders in particular), here is a short passage that illustrates quite well the boundaries of understanding possible between a Templar and a Muslim:
I saw how one franc came to the emir Mu'in ad-Din, may Allah have mercy on him, when he was in As-Sakhra, and said: "Do you want to see God as a child?" “Yes,” said Mu'in ad-Din. Frank went in front of us and showed us a picture of Miriam, on whose lap was sitting the little Messiah, may peace be over him. "Here is a god when he was a child," said the franc. May the great Allah be exalted above what the wicked say, to a great height!
Big politics sometimes demanded signs of courtesy towards the infidels, but clearly not such as to renounce their faith for the sake of the Virgin Mary. Osama, who constantly sends all francs to hell, had no intention of going beyond mere politeness.
Secondly, all the speculations about the so-called syncretism of the Templars with the Muslim religion, the esoteric teaching of the Assassins and the like, in short, all attempts to prove that the Templars were not or were no longer Christians, reach the point of absurdity. The Templars were Christians - and fanatical Christians. And that is exactly what the Muslims considered them.
Third, Reedfor may represent an aggressive Christianity of the extreme, which was certainly more widespread in the order than is usually believed, and this, no doubt, explains his election as a master. J. Duby's study of the battle, God's judgment, and the game of chess, where everyone was at stake, complements the following remark by D. Seward: in the battle of Fontaine de Cresson, Ridford probably thought about God's judgment and recalled the words of Judas Maccabee: “The number is not enough means for victory, if the power comes from God”- this idea was popular throughout the Middle Ages, including in the midst of the Hundred Years War!
At the same time, Reedfor was inclined to extremes. His hatred of Raymund of Tripoli was literally painful; influence on Guy de Lusignan - exorbitant: behavior in battle - unbalanced. Let's not forget that he joined the order after an illness. Ambrosius's account of his death makes it doubtful that he has recovered. It was not just a disease of unhappy love!
Epilogue
In the month that passed since the Battle of Hattin, Saladin conquered the entire kingdom: fortresses and cities left without defenders fell without resistance. Having abandoned the idea of capturing Tripoli and Antioch, ignoring the few castles that still continued to defend, Saladin decided to seize Jerusalem, which would become an indisputable symbol of his victory in the holy war. Before starting the siege, the sultan subdued Ascalon: for this he ordered to bring from Damascus Guy de Lusignan and Gerard de Ridfort, so that they ordered the royal and order garrisons in Ascalon and the surrounding castles to surrender. Perhaps this is the reason for Saladin's strange mercy: he used the king and master to speed up and simplify the conquest of the Holy Land. In October, after several days of siege, Jerusalem surrendered. Each resident could freely leave the city - having previously paid for his freedom. The Hospitallers bought out their share of the treasury of Henry II; the patriarch refused to part with his; the order of the Temple gave money, the wealthy townspeople resisted and did not want to pay for the poor. Disgrace has become the lot of everyone. Those who managed to buy off formed three groups. They were led by the last defenders of the city, Balian d'Ibelen and the commanders of the Templars and Hospitallers: they escorted the inhabitants of Jerusalem to Tire, where refugees from all over the kingdom flocked. Under the protection of strong fortress walls, having received reinforcements in the form of a detachment of crusaders - led by the energetic Konrad of Montferrat (his father Boniface was one of Hattin's captives) - Tire held out, and at the end of December 1187, after two months of fruitless siege, the Muslims retreated. The kingdom was still holding on. Saladin freed Ridfor and Lusignan, knowing full well that in this way he would sow discord in the camp of the Latins, who were divided on the question of the responsibility of these two people for the disaster that had occurred. Ridfor again led the Order of the Temple. Exiled from Tyr along with Guy, he followed him on a reckless but successful adventure to reclaim Acre. It was there that he died in battle on October 4, 1190. Let's give the floor to Ambroise. “In this case, the master of the Order of the Temple was killed, the one who spoke the kind word that came from his valiant training,” says our accurate and sarcastic chronicler:he followed him on a reckless but successful adventure to reclaim Acre. It was there that he died in battle on October 4, 1190. Let's give the floor to Ambroise. “In this case, the master of the Order of the Temple was killed, the one who spoke the kind word that came from his valiant training,” says our accurate and sarcastic chronicler:he followed him on a reckless but successful adventure to reclaim Acre. It was there that he died in battle on October 4, 1190. Let's give the floor to Ambroise. “In this case, the master of the Order of the Temple was killed, the one who spoke the kind word that came from his valiant training,” says our accurate and sarcastic chronicler:
When people brave and brave told him in this attack: "Get out of here, our lord, go!" (And he could, if he wanted to.) He replied: "It will not please God at all, neither that I should be in another place, nor that the Order of the Temple was reproached for seeing me running away." And he didn't do that. He died because many Turks attacked him.
Three years earlier, Saladin had entered the Holy City. He performed the purification of the holy places of Islam. The golden cross that crowned the dome of the Rock was overthrown, and the altar on the rock was destroyed. The Temple of Solomon became the Al-Aqsa Mosque again. The wall that hid the mirhab, the niche indicating the direction of Mecca, was dismantled. Saladin ordered to install in a large hall, which again became a place of prayer, a minbar (a kind of pulpit), which in 1169 was ordered to be built by Nur-ad-Din himself, specifically in order to place it in Al-Aqsa when he conquered Jerusalem. Harran, the ancient Temple Mount, was bathed in rose water. On the first Friday after the capture of the city, the Qadi of Damascus read a prayer in the presence of Saladin and explained the meaning of Jerusalem for Muslims. Thus, the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of the Lord did not just become the Al-Aqsa and Omar Mosques again;these sacred places have become even more dear to the hearts of Muslims.
The Franks regained Jerusalem under the treaty of 1229 and owned it until 1244; but Harran was not given to them. It was necessary to wait for 1143 for the Templars to regain - essentially symbolically - their former main residence. The new house was in Acre, where it remained until the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
From the book: "The Life and Death of the Order of the Knights Templar." Demurzhe Alain